The time has come for Bonny, Kym and I to let you all know the…
Read With Us: It’s Gilead Discussion Day
UPDATE:
We really hate to do this, but we have to postpone or Zoom discussion of Gilead scheduled for tonight. One of our team is quite ill with flu and says “her brain is completely scrambled and she can barely keep her eyes open”. That is no way to try and participate in a book discussion, so we will postpone our Zoom discussion until next Tuesday, March 24th at 7:00 pm. We’re very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause and hope you’ll be able to join us next Tuesday.
Thank you,
The Read With Us team
The time has come to share our thoughts and ideas about the Read With Us Winter 2026 book, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. This book fell under our “re-read a classic” category and I know many of us have had mixed reactions to our experience with the book this time around. I expect we’ll spend some time talking about that during our Zoom session tonight at 7pm, but for the blog discussion I’d like to focus on something a little different.
Ames intends his letter to be a guide for his son’s life. But as the book unfolds, the letter wanders through memory, theology, regret, and wonder. In the end, does Ames actually succeed in giving his son guidance? If you were Ames’s son, what would you take from this letter?
I think a case can be made for both sides, and I’m curious to hear your take.
As always, Bonny, Kym and I are grateful to have you Read With Us.
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I have to say that I liked the book a little more on this reread. I don’t know if it’s because I’m in a different place or because I listened rather than reading with my eyes this time. I’m not sure if Ames totally succeeds; I’m not sure it’s possible to completely guide a child’s life via a letter. But I think he does a good job of giving his son a sense of who he is and where he came from — his history, his upbringing, etc. — and perhaps answering some questions that his son would never be able to ask him.
Hmm … interesting question. I think Ames does as well as possible in giving his son some guidance, given that he most likely won’t be around to see him grow up. I don’t think the letter would serve a young child very well, but I think that he might appreciate that his father cared about him enough to write a (really long and rambling) letter. I think it might make a difference to his son as he grew into a young man. If I were his son, I might ultimately take that life is a gift and I should appreciate that gift and look for the good.
Great question, Carole. I actually thought about this a lot while rereading this book… how would I feel if someone wrote a letter like this to me… and for me the answer was… not good. I could not step out from the piousness, how judgmental it is, how sanctimonious. For me, it was a better letter for the son to use as a guide of how not to be. I guess this book is just a very good reflection of how I am really not the same person I was when I first read this book (I originally rated it 4 stars on Goodreads) and where I am now…in my now, this book is full of religion but very little about faith. The later is something I think I have but I have let the religion go. (and I could not stop thinking about this old man having a child with a much younger woman… it really sickened me.)
Guidance, maybe not. But someday, maybe at 25 rather than 18, the boy will have a chance to know his father. And see himself, as a little boy, in his father’s words. To feel beloved. That would be valuable to someone who lost their father so young.
Rather than guidance, I think the “letter” will give the son (at a later age) a sense of what his father was like. It will show his piousness, his biases, his religiousness. I also think it will provide the son with a sense that his father (despite his – the father’s – faults) truly loved him.
I think it is a letter that will be appreciated by the son when he is an adult, not so much for guidance, but for giving the son a sense of the person his father was-his beliefs, regrets, & hopes. Knowing a parent as an adult is so different that knowing a parent as a young child. Overall, I think the letter did communicate the father’s love for his son.
I think it would depend on how old the son is when he reads it. I think it would just give him some idea of what kind of life his father had.